Home is Where the Art (Making) is

Dad doing a watercolour at Victoria Beach.

One of the joys of summer time spent together as a family is all the art making we collectively do; both separately and together. From sketching with dad, to creating art works at events like Paint The Town and submitting artwork for art competitions like the Annapolis County Exhibition, to making a short-film that a few members of my family helped work on, the best part of all is that we are together. Here are some photos of some family and our summer art--and film--making.

A watercolour of toadstools I made while participating in the Paint The Town ARCAC benefit
event in Annapolis Royal August 20th and 21st. 

Everyone sketched while we waited for the food to arrive at a local Annapolis Royal restaurant. 

                                                      Dad holding up the portrait I did of him.

Dad sketching Goat Island from Clementsvale side. Gorgeous sunny day, and the seagulls, 

which reside on this side of the island were "talking" so loudly at points dad and I

 couldn't hear each other speak.

                  Max and his local birds color marker drawing which won a second prize ribbon 

                                  at The Annapolis County Exhibition art show.  

Max and his pastel Loon drawing that won a third prize in the children's art category of the art competition at The Annapolis County Exhibition. 

Marie drawing at the First Annual Peace Party in Young's Cove on August 14th.

Liz makes an Origami frog (with me) at the Theme Park. Liz's is the one with the fly on its tongue!

I won a couple of ribbons for a watercolour self-portrait of mine at the Annapolis County Exhibition; a second prize plus a prize for the best watercolour in the show! 

One morning all three of us were making art in our porch studio at the same time. Kerry made some coffee dipped monochromatic pieces, Max was working on a drawing and I was finishing a piece for the Paint The Town show.

Curphey Forrestall is at the moment beginning a large block long mural that he won a big commission for in competition with several other muralists and artists! It will involve scenes of Nova Scotia 

and this project will take him most of the month of  September.  

Frank Forrestall is in post-production on a dark version of a  short film "Jack & Jill" he directed this summer that he describes as a "haunting fable about Love, Death and Spiritual Despair." Curphey Forrestall acted as Art Director while our amazing niece 

Millie Webb did all the hair and make-up. 

http://www.indiegogo.com/Jack-Jill-Short-Film

Renee was one of 8 artists chosen chosen to take part in CBC Radio's Sharing The View calendar 2012. Here is some of the information off the CBC website plus a link

 below to a podcast interview of Renee speaking about her work. 

"Announcing the Final Eight!

Wow, what a challenge, to choose eight painters from among the 137 imaginative submissions! Thanks to our Marquee Artists for the time and care they dedicated to the selection process.
The eight artists chosen to take part in Information Mornings 2012 Sharing the View Calendar are:
Virgina McCoy, painting the Inverness racetrack.
Wayne Boucher painting an Annapolis Royal sunrise.
Al Chaddock painting Mahone Bay
Renee Forrestall painting Peggy's Cove.
Sarah Jane Conklin painting a fall landscape.
Alan Bateman painting the fields of the Annapolis Valley.
Carol Pye painting the church at Grand Pre.
Darren Bennett painting the Commercial Cable Office in Canso."

http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningns/features/sharingtheview/

A fam sketch trip resulted in dad's beautiful watercolour (top left), Renee's wonderful oil painting (top right),
my unfinished watercolour (bottom left) and Max's landscape watercolour (bottom right).

My finally finished watercolour of Queen's Anne's Lace in front of a lobster boat for sale at Victoria Beach.

Renee sketching at Victoria Beach in August.

Max stands next to his watercolour of a Tree Swallow on the French Basin trail at the Silent auction
of The Paint The Town benefit event in Annapolis Royal in August.

I'm standing with some of the watercolours I made for Paint The Town art benefit in August,
which I did  with Max this year. The watercolour closest to my head is of Max bird watching.

And I'm currently writing and illustrating a fun children's chapter booklet 

as a project for a restaurant chain. It will be distributed in 120 restaurants all over the United States. Exciting!

--Monica Forrestall

SEW ARTFUL

In case you needed any more evidence that crafting is having a historical moment, how about one of the most important contemporary art museums in America inviting an artist who sews clothing sculptures and makes buttons to do a show? Yesterday's family art workshop at The Whitney Museum of America Art was devoted to exploring the fascinating work, and the world, of Charles LeDray. As usual, the workshop leader, begins the 2-hour learning workshop in the galleries of a current show to look at and discuss the work that will inspire the art making later on. It was a pleasant surprise when the elevator doors opened on the third floor to reveal the show of the strange miniature sculptures of New York artist Charles LeDray.

Detail of miniature jackets, pants and shirts on tiny racks. 

The galleries would be closed to the public for another 25 minutes, so we had the rare treat of having the place to ourselves. Parents and kids sprawled on the floor to listen, interact and make drawings without being self conscious. We started in the man room right off of the elevator, where there were two pieces of work installed: the one we discussed a row of tiny hand made hats hanging at about 12 foot off the ground, and a second piece of an elaborately embroidered jean jacket in a glass vitrine.

The second room was filled with one large, 3-part installation, set up in a dark room.  One of the three parts is pictured above, what appears to be the back room of a second hand clothing store.

The table of ties was set up with a mannequin with a natty suit on it. Hanging above each scene was a ceiling of cheap white tiles, and ugly neon lights.  The first part, below was a miniature run down looking second hand shop with two circular racks of clothes: t-shirts one one, jackets on the other. Plus a table with folded clothing on it. Max pointed out to me, they looked dirty. Mark pointed out to us, the layer of dust on the top of the racks, and mentioned that Charles had made the dust himself. Apparently he makes everything himself. Nothing is fabricated for him, nor does he have a team of assistants creating his artwork for him. According to his bio, Charles learnt to sew as a young child and it became his life's passion.

Down in the workshop, Mark began by explaining what the project would be, based on the installation piece we saw, the children would each create some item that one would find in a store. Mark then suggested the children collectively create a list of things that one would find in a shop. This was the list 

List of items the children thought up for the store's inventory.

 that evolved. Ella (6) suggested a short order cook. Mark was amused, but said, "I'm putting that down, he could make snacks for the shoppers." The instructors are super relaxed, freeform and enthusiastic about the kids ideas, process and art. Max suggsted toys (since our next stop of the day was to to be the new Lego store). Then Mark demonstrated different ways of creating three-dimensional things.

Max folding and taping his toy figure.

Then Mark invited all the kids to help themselves to the wonderfully varied art materials laden on two enormous side tables. There was everything from an enormous ziplock bag filled with vintage empty spool threads to wire and wire cutters to glue sticks. Max helped himself to a couple of sheets of heavy silver paper, a blue pipe cleaner, some scissors, a piece of green construction paper, a roll of black tape and announced "I'm not going to tell you what I'm making, it's going to be a surprise." Then he got busy.

He ran into some difficulty trying to hold the paper down while he cut it to fit the balled up batting, so he asked me to hold it in place while he taped down the edges. Max revealed clues about the "toy" he was making for the shop. The young boy to our right was busy making chocolate bars with his dad, while the young lady on our right was making an elaborate shirt to be displayed on a mannequin.

Max was busy applying foam shapes, and his name on sticky letters on the front. He created a price tag ($12.99) and taped it to the back.

He asked me to finish his second leg, so he could "make his money." I assumed he wanted to make money to buy things in the store. But Max wound up making a $1 bill, then attaching a $2 price tag to it and put it on a "store shelf" to display. That got a humorous reaction from all the parents and teacher. The dad next to me said, "well its handmade,"as an argument for the price. When children are given more freedom in these workshops, the results are so original!

(left) some of the children's imaginative store inventory items. include (from left) a produce store, Max's figure and dollar bill, and candy bars.

Ella's short order cook with egg cooking in a frying pan is on the top shelf. Ice cream cones for 5 cents and a coffee table, a mannequin with clothes on it and a juggler is on the middle shelf.

After the workshop ended and we were walking out, I asked Max if he minded going back to the exhibition so we could see all of it, sice we had really only seen two galleries of the exhibition. He was keen to go back.

Some of the other rooms included sculptures that included "Honey and Milk" a 6-shelf piece with 2000 tiny (2 inch high or less) vases, all hand thrown by LeDray.

Detail of a few of the 2000 white vases.

In my opinion, the Whitney Museum of American Art runs these programs better than any other museum I've been to and Max has come to know all of the instructors: Rachel, Jesse and now Mark!
--Monica Forrestall

Two Family Art Programs, Two Museums (The Whitney & MoMA), One Weekend

The take away message up front: one art workshop per weekend is plenty!

Max and I hit two last weekend, the first at The Whitney, based on Edward Hopper's show Modern Life  Saturday morning at 10:30, and then an action painting workshop inspired by the Abstract Expressionist show at MoMA on Sunday at 2:30.

The Whitney Family Art Workshop
Headed up by the bubbliest, nicest and most child-friendly art instructor of all time, Rachel, Max and I headed up to the galleries with the afore mentioned teach, and four other children (all girls) early, before the museum even opened to the public. There's a real " NY insider" feeling to having to have a security guard unlock an elevator to have it be able to stop on the floor where the exhibition is. The first painting we all gathered in front of to discuss was "Barber Shop" (1931.)

"Hopper’s 1931 Barber Shop recalls an era when—aside from the manicure girl—the barbershop was an exclusively male-dominated place. Unisex salons were nowhere to be found. A man’s hair was cut regularly and uniformly, and because few men grew beards then, shaving was a frequent routine. Barbers wore white tunic uniforms and treated their male customers with respect and formality. The barbershop was also a networking center for businessmen, particularly hotel barbershops, which tended to be the most lavish. There were face massages, treatments for baldness, nail buffing and trimming, and shoe shines."

Max paints a figure sweating in a swimming pool. 

Max with the group as they all discuss their painting. 

Max takes a good look at an exhibit of artists sketchbooks at MoMA before the workshop.

Max working on an action painting. 

Action painting based on Franz Kline painting the children analyzed in the galleries.

Watercolour painting inspired by the Charles Burchfield show at the Whitney Museum of American Art

I took Max up to the Whitney yesterday to do one of their great Family Art Workshops and this time the project Max was to do was inspired by the show of paintings "Heat Waves in a Swamp" by Charles Burchfield. The workshop instructor was Jesse, who Max had already worked with, and when Max walked in he said, "Hey you've been here before."
We sat on the floor of a large gallery room of early works, in front of a painting titled "Four Seasons."
Jesse led a discussion and encouraged responses on how this painting that portrayed four seasons in one landscape work was unusual, interesting and mysterious.

Jesse then passed out small watercolor "postcards" and pencils and asked the children to choose their favorite painting and from it choose three favorite elements and interpret them on  the postcard, which they would then use as a reference for a larger piece to be done in the studios downstairs.

Max's beautiful drawing downstairs was inspired by Burchfield's painting "An April Mood"(above) of a crooked tree in a storm, very gray in palette, very dramatic. It looked like a haunted-house type-of-tree that we are seeing in stores and imagery all over these days.

I was inspired by this painting "Dandelion seed heads and the moon" (above), which had trees blowing in the breeze and butterflies and a dragonfly. One of the very modern things Burchfield does in his work is show motion, movement and vibrations. He loved to visually interpret the sounds 

he heard in the nature around him. 

In the studio, for his final piece (below), Max chose to make something completely different, a watercolour of a whale (which reminded him of the big blue whale on the ceiling at the Museum of Natural History).

The instructor, Jesse, kindly invited the parents to also make watercolours, "since you probably don't have an opportunity to make art everyday in your lives." And all the parents did. Jesse said it made for a richer experience to have children painting side by side with their parents. 

The tableful of the children (and their parents) watercolour paintings at the end of the hour of painting, laid out for everyone to see and talk about. 

Max's exuberant and colorful watercolour of an ocean scene of a blue whale and divers and fishing on the left. My wc of a dragonfly flying over dandelions and a secret swim hole under the full moon, on the right. Most importantly, Max and I made a wonderful mother/son memory, 

painting and drawing side by side. 

Paint The Town ARCAC benefit weekend becomes a family affair

                                           Painting watercolours at Hillsdale House gardens. Dad did a figure in a landscape piece, while Max focused on a wc pencil piece of squirrels running up a tree.

Monica and dad painting at Fort Anne Saturday afternoon. 

Remembering the most wonderful mother of all time on Mother's Day

Tom Forrestall, Natalie Forrestall and Max Forrestall Schuss in 2002.

Mother's Day is always bitter sweet for me, overjoyed to be the mother of a wonderful son, who fills our days with sunshine. Still heavy of heart thinking of our extraordinary mother, so filled with generosity and love for everyone she met. Truly, one of the kindest people I've ever met. She'll never be forgotten by anyone who ever loved her, or had the good fortune of meeting her.

xxx to mom!

---Monica Forrestall

"Detention Never Tasted So Good" a film Max Forrestall Schuss helped work on (and starred in) premieres at The Tribeca Film Festival in their Kids Behind the Camera program!

      The film makers from left: Declan Rexer, Max Schuss, Jane Hollander and Rachel Weir.
A film that Max helped make with fellow film makers Declan Rexer, Jane Hollander and Rachel Weir premiered today, Sunday, April 25th at the Tribeca Film Festival in their Youth Behind the Camera program. The kids did great on the red carpet 
(see their interview here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j90qrKKP7Tg  ) and in the Q & A session with questions coming from Canadian film maker Rob Kerbyson, after all seven of the films aired. All the young film makers did a great job fielding the questions in front of a few hundred people (one little boy (below, far left) refused to talk--they put the mike in his face twice and nothing, the third time he shook his head as if to say "you can't make me talk"---hilarious--he stole the show). 

Rachel, on the other hand had a lot to say about the 15 chocolate chip cookie props and who ate the lion's share during filming--Max apparently :) Later, in the theatre lobby, Max clarifies what his motivation was for eating most of the cookies with an old friend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAB1oZYDauA 

The film makers with the two amazing Manhattan Youth After-School film instructors, (far left) Chloe Raynes and instructor on this film Andrea Dao Wong

The 5:59 minute short film was a story all the kids helped conceive in their Manhattan-Youth After-School class. The program director is Theseus Roche. Their story was about four kids who were sent to detention (Max had no idea why). On the way to detention room, Jane notices a jar of cookies in the cooking class kitchen. She came to detention and wrote a note ( Max said the teacher wound up writing it out, as it was a long note) which she passed to her fellow detentionees suggesting they take the cookies and eat them. Everyone thinks it's a great idea, and so Max goes out to "get a drink of water" but then deviates to find a ladder, gets the cookies down, eats a couple, then brings some back for his fellow conspirators to enjoy. They passed the cookies under the table, everyone ate up,  no one was caught and detention was swe-e-e-et! 

Film maker Mr. Kirbyson, who was asked to host the Q & A asked the kids if they'd ever seen the film "The Breakfast Club" and the kids looked at him blankly and said "no" as a group. Kirbyson noted it referenced an earlier film, and they needed to make this short into a feature film as a 

re-make of that 80's classic. 

Declan Rexer (left) and Max Forrestall Schuss (right) looked pretty relaxed and happy on the stage.

Max being "interviewed" by Todd on the red carpet.

Max signs a few autographs, using his dad's back as a desk, which Rachel thinks is very funny.

Sandra Katz is the woman who makes this program happen, and she did an amazing job of paying homage to a group of fascinating young film makers and their creativity and boundless energy.

above: Max and his most loyal fans aka mom and dad (Monica Forrestall, Kerry Schuss).

Some of the other film makers who screened today: Etai, Ivan, Joey, Josse, Matisse, Mitchell 

and Stanley 's film "George and the Volcano" from Manhattan Youth After School program at PS 150.

Film makers: from left: NYC Shoes by Maia Ezratty from Nest +M School project. Right: brothers: Gavin & Kian Zinzell and their film Skate Ting.

A link to The Tribeca Film Festival site describing the event in more detail. 

http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/events/family-festival/downtown-youth/ 

And to Zimbio website which covered the event. 

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/l339NvezdBg/Downtown+Youth+Behind+Camera+2010+Tribeca/LqQ91nDHMcc 

---Monica Forrestall